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Episode 120
After some investigating of the warehouse and surrounding area, the party decides that it's time to investigate Abel Irons. * Everyone leaves Ironclad and heads to the rival Steelwing compound which is on the other side of the industrial district. The halfling security guard at the front gate accosts them and notifies the party that Abel isn't seeing anyone right now, and isn't clearing anyone inside without a warrant. * Lucius suggests breaking in, but Vahlka and Barkley stop him before the thought goes any further and decide that they're just going back to Dale to get the proper clearance. In the meantime, they can also meet up with Andy and Grey. * The party meets up with Dale and relays the information they know so far to him, including that they'll need a warrant in order to access the compound. Dale goes off to produce the paperwork and there's some brief discussion about fiends, hags, and what she'd even be doing trying to animate the automatons. * Dale comes back with the warrant and tells them that it clears them to search the compound, but doesn't go so far as to force Abel to speak with them. * The party heads off back to the Squeaky Gear. Andy, Deacon, and Grey are sitting at a table and tell them what they found in the forest. Apparently, tracks are going to hidden places at strategically placed "pick up points" and taking them deeper in the forest, but seemingly converge into one main point. Andy expresses that they didn't go any further until it was time to meet up with the Arsonists, though. * Everyone heads off together towards the Steelwing compound at last, warrant in tow. They're capable of accessing the area freely now and decide that they'll look around the factory first for anything before attempting to convince talking to Abel. The workers are relatively unfriendly and instead of making large robotics, the employees are making much smaller components that the party doesn't exactly understand. * Olivia asks a halfling woman overseeing the operations what things are being made here and she explains children's toys, curiosities for nobility, and other small items. Lucius investigates around the machinery for any hidden runes but it doesn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary, so he returns back to the party and suggest they move on. * The party finds another security guard and asks if there's been any disasters lately, or if he's noticed their boss acting strangely. Apparently, Abel doesn't come out of his estate (located inside the compound) very often lately, and only at night when the place is closed. This happened only a few months ago, which coincides with the timeline that everyone already knows. * They move on to the office building and Vahlka flashes the warrant again. They go inside Abel's office to find an extremely messy desk and a picture of his brother and him but none of his family. Vahlka and Lucius investigate the desk, noticing that only the third drawer is locked. Barkley picks the lock and finds a journal with diagrams of sigils, but Lucius can't make any sense of it as he's not familiar with devil summoning. They find some sage. * Everyone moves towards the manor and they have a discussion where to go from there. Barkley sneaks through the hedge and looks through one of the windows, trying to avoid a dog in a doghouse. She can't see very much so casts Mage Hand to move the curtains on the other side of the window. The lights are on but no one's currently in the living room, but a distant humming can be heard in where one could assume the kitchen is located. * Barkley moves around where the kitchen is located. While the curtains are drawn, there's definitely someone that appears to be washing dishes on the other side. Barkley summons her familiar again to look through the second story window where the curtains aren't drawn and sees a children's room, where a young boy is tucked into bed and is a reading a book. There's another set of beds inside, but both are unoccupied. Barkley also takes a cursory glance at the other rooms, but they're either boarded up or have nothing interesting inside. * Barkley heads back to the rest of the party and relays the information. Olivia mentions that they could just walk up to the door, but Andy mentions that if there's truly devils inside the house that they'll attempt to flee if anyone catches wind of their location. * Barkley once again makes the executive decision to break in and opens one of the windows to the servant's quarters. A foul smell reaches her nose and it's revealed the scent is emanating from two corpses in the beds. Barkley goes invisible and slips into the hallway. It's not just the corpses that smell bad, but the entire estate. Barkley moves into the kitchen where what appears to be a young, gnome woman is and upon seeing something horrible placed on the stove, backs away slowly. * On the top of the stairs is a dog, moving and sniffing around. Instead of going upstairs, Barkley turns around and investigates the office where she finds some occult books among the robotics ones. By then the dog has moved down the stairs so Barkley attempts to sneak past it, but it notices her on the way and begins barking. It does not sound like a dog. * The dog transforms into a hellhound. Barkley drops invisibility and runs down the second story hallway, where she casts Dispel Magic on the magically locked door and into the boy's room. Barkley asks the boy if he'd like to be rescued and he nods emphatically. * Vahlka charges through the hedge and seeks to breach the manor. Upon doing so, the dog inside the doghouse is alerted to much of the same reaction - transforming into a hellhound right before her eyes. Vahlka, undeterred by a simple beast, strikes it with the Holy Avenger twice and destroys it. Vahlka tries to burst through the door but it doesn't give, so Godfrey Eldritch Blasts it instead. * As everyone floods into the house, the sound of a door opening and closing is heard from the kitchen's direction. * Vahlka, Olivia, and Godfrey run forward through the back door and into the back yard, via the kitchen. The gnome woman runs toward the back gate and Vahlka pursues, although she's much further along. Realizing that she might not be able to successfully catch the fleeing party, Lucius casts Dimension Door on both himself and Vahlka so that they can cut her off. * Vahlka tries to grapple her but she's much stronger than expected and gets away, shoving Vahlka away from her. Vahlka also attempts to attack her with the Holy Avenger, but misses. * Lucius attempts to cast Moonbeam on her but before it can even so much as stop her, there's a brief flash of a spell circle and the gnome woman disappears. * Barkley and the gnome boy slide down the tree to rejoin the rest of the party. The boy mentions that the woman has been in the house doing horrible things and his two sisters have been missing for "a while". Apparently his father doesn't come out of the basement, either. * Andy takes the boy and goes to fetch the guard. * Everyone goes down into the basement. There is a blood circle and plenty of evidence that someone, at some point, summoned a devil to that location. Abel Irons is there, completely unaware of the party, talking to himself and listless. He doesn't respond to anything or attempts to communicate. Lucius finds a scroll (of Infernal Calling), a note, a bag containing a necklace, and a large tooth belonging to a black dragon. * The party heads upstairs and Deacon dispels both sigils that are on the two doors remaining. In one of the rooms there's another corpse of a woman, but nothing else appears to be strange there. * The last room has no sign of dust or debris, almost getting an impression of over-cleanliness. Lucius and Vahlka investigate and together they find hints of something insidious - a bag of humanoid nails, a drawer full of dirt and maggots, a gross book, a mummified cat, and a suspiciously moist bag that they decide is best left alone. Vahlka finds a bunch of books written in Infernal, an atlas, some maps, and a large tome written in Draconic. * Vahlka passes the strange book to Lucius, which turns out to be the Draconomicon. It mostly has information of chromatic dragons over metallic, but does have a listing of well-known dragons and their whereabouts. A bookmark turns onto a page about black dragons. We get a listing of currently alive black dragons and we briefly consider scrying on the tooth. * The guard arrives and the party discusses whether to rest or strike first. Lucius says they may lose their trail if they linger for very long. The session ends with everyone deciding to pursue the hag immediately after the investigation and head in the direction where Andy and Grey found the tracks.